Who's Taming Who?
by Todd's Pet
Summary: Un-named human female is taken as worshipper by un-named wraith Commander obviously Todd - he loves a challenge and she's pretty stubborn - will he tame her - does he even want to?


Who's Taming Who?

"If no one wants her, why do we keep her?" the new Commander demands brusquely.

For the millionth time since she was taken by the wraith she's convinced she's about to breathe her last breath, holding it as she waits to hear what the young officer will reply.

"She's very intelligent and seems to have an innate understanding of wraith language and technology, Commander," he says.

"She's allowed access to our systems?"

"Em... she's been here a very long time, Commander," the young wraith stammers. "She has proved herself trustworthy... and useful."

"Just so stubborn and defiant that not one wraith on the hive will take her as his worshipper," the Commander muses wryly.

He strides over to her and grabs her chin in his hand, tilting her face up to look at her. She looks him straight in the eye.

He's unlike any wraith she's ever seen before. He's taller for a start and there's something very imposing about him, something she can't put her finger on. All the other wraith are either smooth-haired or dreadlocked, but this one is neither one nor the other; his long, white hair falling in a bedraggled waterfall around his shoulders, tangled and twisted, and yet she suspects if she touched it, it would be gossamer soft.

His tattoo runs in jagged, sharp lines around his left eye, but as she looks deep into those eyes she can see no harshness echoed there. This wraith is different alright, she thinks; she's known others who were intelligent and tolerant but there's something about this one, something that runs deep, something that makes her wonder if he might even know how to have fun.

It seems he's been sizing her up just as deeply for he gives her a slight smile before he lets go of her jaw and says to the other officer, "I'll take her, then."

oOo

"Here we go again," she sighs, standing in the room she was taken to, waiting for her new 'owner' to turn up. "I wonder how long this one will last?" she mutters.

She looks around the room. It's messier than most she's been obliged to live in; wraith tend to be pretty Spartan and minimal and don't accumulate possessions of sentimental value. Another way this wraith is different then, she thinks, looking at the chaos strewn across his workstation.

Something glitters and catches her eye; pushing two computer tablets aside she picks up a large chunk of amethyst. She turns it over in her hand, feeling how heavy it is and watching the gem's facets glinting in the dim light from the hive walls.

She's lost in her examination of the crystal when a sudden hissing noise makes her jump and spin around to face the door.

"Find anything interesting?" he asks her. Even his deep, gravelled voice is different from other wraith; there's a velvety undertone that makes her spine tingle every time he speaks.

She stands there, staring at him, holding the crystal out in front of her like some kind of offering to him. He walks over to her, takes it from her and lays it back on his desk.

"You'll know the procedure by now," he says casually, "I believe you've been round virtually every wraith on the hive."

"Charming!" she says, affronted.

He turns and raises one eyebrow – if he had eyebrows – and gives her a puzzled look.

"You make it sound like..." She feels herself start to blush under his scrutiny and wishes she could stop it. "Oh, never mind." She wills her pulse to slow down and goes on, "Yes, I know the drill: keep your uniform clean and your room tidy and stay out of your way."

"I may want you to do other things for me," he says.

She's certain she can hear a hidden smirk in his voice. "Like what?" she asks, squaring up to him already.

"Oh, just a few errands here and there," he drawls in that smooth-as-chocolate voice.

Now she knows he's making fun of her and she scowls up at him. "Don't think I don't know what you're doing!"

"Indeed?"

"I'm just a toy to you," she flings at him. "A wilful pet to be tamed!"

He smiles straight at her and she curses herself silently for reacting to the gleam in his eyes with a little thrill that shivers through her whole body.

"I enjoy a challenge," he tells her.

oOo

For a few days that's exactly what she does do: launders his clothes, tidies his rooms and stays out of his way. He's impressed she's lasted this long, so it's no surprise when on the morning of the fourth day he hears her exasperated voice call out, "Oh for goodness' sake! I only cleared this mess up yesterday and look at it already!"

He stands in the doorway of his bedroom, rakes his hands through his hair and asks, "There is a problem?"

She turns and glares at him but says nothing before she turns back to his workstation. She moves things around with exaggerated irritation, clearing tablets into drawers and his oddly un-wraith-like nick-nacks onto shelves. She doesn't answer him directly but he can hear her muttering under her breath... something along the lines of leaving everything at his feet and never putting anything in the same place twice.

He chuckles quietly, turns and heads for the shower.

A little while later he saunters back into the room, towel drying his hair. He dumps the towel on a chair then walks over to his desk where she has just finished tidying.

She makes a show of sighing impatiently when she goes over to pick up the wet towel and he tries to hide a smile.

"Come here," he says sharply.

She turns and hesitates. He's sitting at his workstation, naked from the waist up, with his back facing her, his wet and straggly hair hanging halfway down his back. The jagged tattoo of his face is repeated over his shoulder, down his arm and across his back, skipping across the spiny ridges that run down the length of his vertebrae.

She has to fight an overwhelming urge to trace those tattoos and spines with her fingers.

"Now," he adds.

She shakes herself and walks over to where he sits. Standing beside him, she's uncomfortably aware that he's still warm and damp from his shower, making the smell of him more intense. It's impossible to avoid it unless she stops breathing – her attempts to do so, combined with the musky scent of him, make her light headed.

He looks up at her with sparkling eyes that make her almost certain he knows the effect he's having on her. "Are you alright?" he asks. She daren't speak and simply nods her head sharply.

He leans across the side of his desk to pull the other chair closer to him. From where she stands she can see the muscles in his back and shoulder tense as he does so, sending a ripple down his spine ridges; she wonders if he knows that and is doing it quite deliberately.

"Sit," he tells her.

Her only thought being to relieve the sensation of her legs turning to jelly, she sits without hesitation – then realises that in doing so she's now even closer to him.

He hits a key on the control panel and the screen bursts into life. "I want you to show me how much you know," he says indicating with his open palm that she should take over the keypad. He doesn't move, however, and to do so she must lean across him, her nose almost touching his hair.

She takes a deep breath and holds it. From the corner of her eye she can see that he's not even bothering to try to hide his amused smile and she curses herself again for the blush she can feel sweeping up from her chest.

oOo

It's just another chore for her to do but she feels inexplicably pleased that he's asked her to take over basic housekeeping tasks in his computer system. Just simple stuff like keeping files and folders tidy and regularly scanning and cleaning the hard drive, but it's almost like a declaration of trust and it pleases her beyond reasonable proportion.

Get a grip of yourself, she thinks. He's just a wraith – and a messy one at that, she tells herself as she picks up clothes left where he dropped them. If anything he's so much trouble to look after that she ought to be desperate to get away from him, not...

Not what? What is it I really want, she wonders – to get close to him? He's a wraith, even other wraith don't get close to each other. He's playing with me, she tells herself sternly – I'm just a pet to him. He's simply dangling pieces of fluffy string in front of me and like a fool I'm playing the kitten and responding. I must be a source of endless amusement for him.

As she berates herself, she scowls and vows to exercise more self control. Just then, the door opens. He walks in and her willpower walks out.

oOo

She's sitting in her cot where she sleeps in the corner of his bedroom, cleaning his boots. Well, she's rubbing the cloth in slow circles around the leather but she isn't even looking at what she's doing – she's watching him in the shower instead.

Suddenly she catches herself, realises what she's doing, and pulls her forehead into a frown.

"Get a grip," she mutters to herself for the millionth time that week and puts all her frustration into cleaning the boots vigorously until they gleam.

He sidles out of the shower, dripping wet and naked. "Towel?" he says, shrugging.

She leaps up from her cot and dashes over to a concealed closet, pulling a towel out and letting several others fall to the floor in her haste to get him covered up. She tries not to look at him as she holds the towel out several feet away from him.

"Do you expect me to trail water through the whole hive?" he says with that amused lilt his voice always seems to have when he speaks to her.

Reluctantly she moves closer, still not looking at him and holding the towel out at arm's length until it makes contact with his stomach. He shrugs his arms out from his sides but makes no move to take the towel from her hand.

Good grief! Does he want me to dry him now? She looks up at him, unable to stop herself from letting her annoyance show on her face when she sees that his eyes are sparkling with barely contained laughter. He takes the towel from her and wraps it around his waist.

"I'm certain I left at least two there before I went to bed last night," she defends herself.

"Perhaps you did..." he says mockingly.

He turns and walks towards his closet, leaving her standing there, open-mouthed with indignation.

oOo

After a long day of muttering her outrage to herself as she cleans up after him and organises his mess, she finally curls up on her cot in the corner. It's always cool on the hive but, for some reason tonight, she's colder than usual and she curls up into a tight ball, pulling the fur cover up and burying herself as deeply into it as she can.

Several minutes pass and, in spite of sheer exhaustion, she knows the cold will prevent her from sleeping.

"Human."

She hears his voice from across the room. She flings the fur off and sits up with an exaggerated sigh, not even bothering to hide her irritation. "What do you want?" she says.

"Come here."

She stands up and walks across to his bed to wait for him to tell her what errand he wants her to do; what reason he has to make her scamper through the cold hive corridors in her bare feet in the dead of night.

He throws his own furs aside and says, "Get in."

After several seconds she realises she's staring at him open-mouthed. "What?" she says and shuts her mouth.

"Do not concern yourself," he says with barely concealed humour, "For warmth only. Unless you want to lie there and shiver all night."

Without waiting for her answer he turns over and settles himself down again, his back facing her. She waits, looking back at her own cot; he does not move. Suddenly she dives into his bed and cocoons herself in several layers of furs. Still he does not move. Tentatively she wriggles a little closer. He doesn't move when she entwines her icy-cold feet through his warm legs; not even when she wraps her cold arms around his chest and burrows into his back.

He does, however, smile broadly when he hears her contented sigh, knowing it's more than just her freezing cold limbs that he's thawing.

His deep, steady breathing and the warmth of him permeating her own body bone-deep, means it's not long before drowsiness overtakes her and she falls asleep.

When she had climbed in and wrapped herself around his back he had thought he had won round one of this little power struggle between them. But as he lies awake, intensely aware of her body warming up and her soft hair draped across his shoulder, he wonders if victory in this round might belong to her, after all.

oOo

"Why do you have these things?" she asks him. "I thought that wraith don't do sentimental?"

"There's a difference between sentimental and meaningful," he replies without looking up.

He's at his workstation again – does he do anything other than work, she wonders? She spent the morning mending and sorting his uniform, making a note for him of what he needs to have replaced.

"Have you no chores to do?" he asks, still not looking up from his work.

"I'm finished – I'm very efficient, you know!" she replies with a cheeky grin and a dip of her knee in a mock curtsey.

He tries to hide a grin as he slowly stands and turns toward her. "I know you are," he says. "What has caught your eye?"

The shelves are part of the wall directly above his desk, undulating in a curving sweep across the width of it. Three shelves, all crammed with old books interspersed with items clearly of no practical use.

She points to a gold globe, intricately carved with filigree. He picks it up and hands it to her and she turns it over in her hand. "What is it?" she asks.

"It's a grenade."

She jerks her head up to look at him, her eyes wide with alarm. He chuckles softly and adds, "It's dead and quite harmless, I assure you. But beautiful to look at, yes?"

She hands it back to him and says, "It's strange that something designed to kill should be so beautiful." The second the words are out she realises what she said and hopes he cannot sense that she was thinking of him as well as the grenade.

She points to a silver and turquoise necklace draped over the spine of an ancient book. "And that?"

His face becomes suddenly serious and he scoops the necklace up and grasps it in his fist. "That belonged to a worshipper I had many centuries ago."

Realising she'd touched a sore spot, albeit inadvertently, she lowers her head and says, "I'm sorry."

He shakes his head and comes back from where he was, a million light years away, and says, "It's alright – you weren't to know." He puts the necklace back where it was and adds, "I'm sure you can think of something to keep yourself occupied. You may choose a book if you wish."

Without another word he sits down and goes back to his work, leaving her looking at the top of his head and wondering what that worshipper of long ago might have meant to him.

oOo

She's getting used to sleeping with him, but she can't really remember when they switched position. She started out curling up against his back for warmth, almost as if he barely tolerated her. Then one day she woke up with him curled around her back, her head cradled in the crook of his shoulder almost protectively. She can't remember when that happened but she likes it; it makes her feel safe.

Don't be stupid, she lectures herself; he's a wraith, you're never safe with a wraith.

But she's survived on this hive for almost forty years now. Indeed not just survived but thrived. There may not be a wraith who could cope with her in the long term, but there have been one or two who liked her well enough, such that, although she was brought here at the age of twenty-three and has lived here for forty years, she still doesn't look or feel a day over thirty.

But it also means that she's been around long enough to know the games some wraith play with their worshippers. She's certain he's playing a game with her, but doesn't know the purpose of it – nor where his endgame might lead.

She wishes she were smarter and able to play him at his own games, but all she can do is continue to survive. And she knows she's good at that.

oOo

About two months into their little cat-and-mouse game he tells her he's going to a conference on the planet below.

"Would you like to come with me?" he asks her. "There's a beach I believe you would like."

Her beaming smile is all the answer he needs and she rushes off to get ready.

Even he thinks the conference has been dull and protracted. He knows she's bored out of her skull but she's trying hard not to fidget and to look solemn as befits the occasion and his status.

He has helped her by constantly drip-feeding her mental images of the sights he'll show her once they're finished – and in return her excitement has prevented him from falling asleep during the pompous speeches.

At last they manage to make their excuses to their hosts and escape to the beach he'd promised her. She is not disappointed. The sand glitters and sparkles like powdered diamonds and the whole beach is littered with multi-coloured shells, exquisitely formed from intricate twists and spirals.

He watches her scamper along the shoreline, dashing in and out of the surf and giggling every time she gets her feet wet. She reminds him so much of the worshipper who once owned the necklace she had admired the other day. Not just in looks, but in her fire and her spirit, her child-like curiosity and her blunt honesty.

She brings back such sweet memories for him that it makes his heart ache to watch her.

Picking up shell after shell and inspecting each one thoroughly she finally plumps on one to keep as a memento of her day. Expecting her to pack it in her bag, she catches him off guard when she runs up the beach and holds it out to him.

"For you," she says, uninhibited and happy. His startled expression makes her suddenly self-conscious and she adds, "If you've enjoyed today as much as I have, that is... you don't have to keep it if you don't want it."

oOo

She's sitting at his workstation berating herself for playing good little secretary and filing all his reports for him; angry at herself for letting her guard down yesterday and showing him that she likes him.

She looks up and her eyes fall on the shelf above his desk where he keeps his small collection of "meaningful possessions".

Her heart skips a beat.

There, right in front of her is the shell she picked up from the beach yesterday and gave to him. He kept it! It's there, on the shelf, sitting among the things that he himself declared mean something to him!

She stands up and reaches out, touching the shell with just the tip of one finger, as if she's afraid it will disappear. How can this be? He must have put it there himself when they got back last night. She strokes one finger along the length of the spiralled edge of the shell. It's not even pushed behind books, or sitting in a jumble of smaller items. It's right there in the middle, on its own and under the light, obviously in pride of place.

She picks it up and turns it over in her hands several times, then instinctively clutches it to her heart.

She becomes aware of a single tear tracking down her cheek. The prospect of what this might mean registers with her and it sets her weeping quietly.

She's completely unaware of the wraith standing in the shadows of the doorway, his golden reptile eyes watching her and showing clearly the turmoil of emotions he feels.

oOo

She lies awake, listening to his breathing and revelling in the warmth of his body spooned into her back. Just as she wonders if he's asleep yet, he stirs. His hand finds her neck and he strokes it, then settles into rubbing his fingers slowly in small circles behind her ear. He snarls softly and she almost murmurs in reply but stops herself – he's petting her, she tells herself; petting her like she was a kitten.

"Do you expect me to purr?" she asks bitterly.

"If it's pleasurable for you..."

She sits up suddenly and her eyes flash fire at him. "Well I'm not a kitten and I can't purr! All I am to you is a pet, a toy! I can't do this anymore!"

He sits up and faces her. "Can't do what anymore?" he asks. Is that the tiniest hint of alarm she can hear in his voice?

"This! This game of yours!" She's almost shouting and her anger spills over into distress, her eyes glistening with tears she's desperately trying to hold back.

In contrast his eyes dull over and he says, "Well, if you hate me that much, then you should go back to–"

"Hate you?" she gives a sharp, cynical little laugh. "Good God, I adore you! That's the whole problem!" she cries. "I adore you but I'm nothing to you."

"Is that what you think? That you mean nothing to me?" His eyes soften and he reaches out his hand and touches her face. She slaps his hand away.

"Stop it!" she snaps. "Just stop teasing me like that!"

All trace of amusement in his tone is gone now as he registers her anger. "No more teasing," he says, "Not now that I know."

"Know what?"

"That you love me as much as I love you."

She's stunned into silence and just sits and looks at him. He reaches out again and touches her temple, then lets his hand drift softly down her face, her neck, her shoulder, setting the downy hair on her skin tingling as his hand runs the length of her arm before he takes her hand in his and lifts it to his lips.

"Didn't the shell on the shelf tell you that?" he says.

She exhales in a sudden rush, flings her arms around his neck and buries her face in his hair before her tears betray her emotions.

"Even though I'm so wilful and disobedient?" she murmurs against his neck, crying and laughing at the same time.

"I have a secret to confess," he tells her. He lies back on their bed and pulls her down with him, so that her hair falls over his face. He breathes in the light, floral scent of it. "I'm glad I couldn't tame you – I like you stubborn and defiant."

Her eyes sparkle with mischief and she asks him, "Just how feisty would you like me to be?"

"Oh, give me all the feist you have," he says.

"What? All of it? The first time?"

"All of it. Every time," he says. He wraps his hands through her hair and nuzzles his face into her neck. Even muffled against her skin his voice sends delicious shivers down her spine.

"I wonder sometimes, just who is taming who here," she asks, sighing contentedly as he covers her throat with soft, warm kisses. He lifts his head and looks deep into her eyes and says, "Does it really matter?"

THE END


End file.
